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No leases for cabin owners
MACA ready for leases, but not for those on DND landSamantha Stokell Northern News Services Published Thursday, September 15, 2011
The cabins, originally thought to be illegally occupying Commissioner's Land, turned out to be located on Department of National Defence land, which is not MACA's to give away. DND established the land as an unsurveyed parcel reserved specifically for cadets in Inuvik in 1992, who also have a cabin on the land.
"We're in discussions with National Defence on asking for them to give a little part of land to leaseholders," said Bev Chamberlin, director of lands administration for MACA. "We won't be able to issue leases to those people on the reserve."
DND parcelled the land to the cadets so they could have room for hiking, biathlon and wilderness training.
Some of the cabin owners had built cabins prior to the parcelling of the land to the cadets and had proposed three options before the Department of Justice took over the case: handing over the land to MACA's jurisdiction; keeping the land around the cadet cabin; or parcelling out the land from the cabins to the water to the cabin owners.
The Department of Justice, which is working on the case, could not be reached for comment by Inuvik Drum.
Inuvik Town Council reviewed MACA's lease agreements in July and approved them, meaning the other 47 cabin owners on Commissioner's land should receive them soon.
The town wanted to ensure the lease includes a requirement that if the town purchases the land from the commissioner, cabin owners would have to surrender their leases and purchase the land.
MACA will hold an information session to provide the general terms and conditions to the leaseholders. Even when the leases are issued, there will still be a building ban on Airport Lake until the end of 2012, when the territory has developed a standard zoning policy for recreational properties.
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